If this is in Amazon, you're very likely marked as LE and in dev plan based on manager's direct criticism. It's also OLR season now when they decide ratings.

You can expect PIP in the next month or two. If you are on visa, start interviewing NOW. Even if you're not, it's more than likely you won't be able to turn things around because Amazon has forced attrition rates (someone has to go every year).

If you're already marked as LE, you won't be able to transfer teams.

Also, go on Blind app for more insider info on how to deal with LE rating, dev plan, PIP etc.

Edit: as others have mentioned, don't quit, even if you're sure you're on the way out. You won't be eligible for severance and unemployment benefits might be more difficult to get. Do the minimum work necessary and use the time to prepare for interviews (or just chill and collect salary).

It's Amazon's strongest survives/dog eat dog/evolutionist/raising the bar philosophy. Maybe everyone is doing a good job but maybe someone else would do even better job. That's why they purge their workforce with forced attrition.

Yah I agree that the a lot of corporate tactics in america (not necessarily just tech companies) could esentally be boiled down to forms of "sophisticated slave-driving", but I doubt the people doing these things see it that way. They think they are doing what "needs" to be done. At least when slavery was a thing the slave drivers knew they were slave drivers, now we have slave drivers who think they are "job creators" or some bullshit.

I live with someone from Nepal, he is a high mid-level dev building a massive financial system and most likely getting paid less than 6 figures. No, it is sophisticated slave driving, sorry don't mean to stoke the fire.

No bathroom breaks. You basically fight the robots and the only people good enough for the warehouses are Mexicans because they work in the fields all day, so moving quickly is not a big deal. There is another documentary about warehouse workers who pack for food distributors connected to Walmart, and the mexicans didn't even know what the company was!!!

It's a black box service and they are only payed $8/hr and it's the main reason that they don't pay taxes. Therefore when American's complain about taxes but spend all of their money and can't save, they think that mexicans and immigrants are these rich illegal fat cats, when they are barely surviving in certain parts of the country. Noone cares either that most of these companies hire mexicans for next day shipping centers. We are all afraid of Bezos launching his robot army on us.

Playing devil's advocate here. Have you ever worked professionally before? At small and large tech companies I have found that more than 10 percent of devs are grossly incompetent. As in, they cannot solve the most basic task. Places like Amazon still get false positives in their hiring process.

Yes, individual competition does suck. But my company does something similar to Amazon and people still love to help one another. There really isn't any competition to not be fired because it is usually pretty damn obvious who the underperformers are. I'd take this route over what I dealt with in my first job where we have senior developers that couldn't figure out a user story on their own since the company didn't like firing people.

The key here is forced attrition. Yes, there are people who should not be software developers. Push them out. However, if you're constantly hiring people who turn out to be unable to solve basic software development issues, then you've got a hiring problem. Fix the filter first and foremost. Better to reject some qualified applicants than hire people who can't get the job done.

Forced attrition is toxic. It creates competition where there should be cooperation. Software development in general is extremely difficult. You make it worse by constantly playing the blame game. Why should I help you out with your bug if its not going to pump my own numbers? Why should I coach or mentor someone else instead of focusing on holding on to my own spot?

The best software teams I've been a part of have had an extremely high level of cooperation and communication. I can't imagine those teams existing if we knew N of us had to go the next review cycle.

Sure, but you are speaking of a hypothetical situation with a perfect hiring process. That simply isn't the case. Despite the rigorous interview processes at top tech companies, there is a plethora of false positives that sneak through and get hired. With how many devs they hire they can easily set a normalized bar. At some point it is more cost effective to fire those people than it is to spend an insane amount of resources to filter candidates. Besides the cost, there are already people that don't want to do 3 hour online assessments. What kind of process do you know of that won't have false positives and won't have too many good candidates turned off from being too rigorous?

And like I was saying, my company does something similar and tells low performers to set an end date. We still help each other all the time. Leadership notices when you are a point person so they won't fire you when people are going TO you to ask questions. Nor will they fire you if you are able to the tasks assigned to you (regardless of you have to ask questions or not).

The problem is 'low performers' frequently end up just being the person(s) worst at playing politics. Again, forced attrition means you have to kick people out, even if they are excellent programmers in all respects.

You can get rid of low performers without a forced attrition policy. That would be just a normal policy of getting rid of people who can't or aren't doing their job. It just requires that management actually do their jobs.

Forced attrition is a ridiculous policy. I'll avoid working for companies that institute that policy, and if I found myself at a company beginning to institute that policy, then I'd head for the nearest exit ASAP.

I don't agree with Amazon's practice (I declined their offer for multiple reasons), but Microsoft has something kind of similar.

At Microsoft, you aren't expected to be a Jr Dev (Software Engineer I), forever. If you fail to make it to Software Engineer II, you're out. However, I was told that some people end up being Software Engineer II forever, and that's fine.

I feel like this is a much more acceptable approach. But always cutting the workforce is excessive.

As a result, it seems like more young people drift towards Amazon in the seattle area. Microsoft is typically more of older folks, and a few younger people. I assume most people with families would rather want the security and awesome benefits at Microsoft, even though Amazon (at least from my anecdotal experience), gives a better offers.

Yeah currently about 3 years in at Big N out of college, not Amazon. I don’t observe anything as gross as what was stated by OP but I see glimpses of detrimental competition between IC’s.

I think it’s best for both sides (employee/employer) if the hiring bar is high, but then again you lose out on unconventional candidates who can and do make trajectory altering contributions.

Ideally teams would be judged on collective output and clearly defined metrics. However as stated, I’m just a relatively young noob, so I don’t have a panacea to offer, just strong opinions that the ways outlined by OP are insane.

This is super relevant. The overt excuse is about building the strongest possible team without letting sentimentality about individual people affect the judgment.

The subtext is creating an anxiety-driven organization based on the sadistic belief that existential terror drives people to higher levels of performance than they would otherwise reach. It sets employees against one another and makes managers hypercritical because it's a requirement of their jobs. It doesn't build the strongest possible team because it prevents building a team at all. You can't avoid a race to the bottom mentality in which not suffering is treated as "stealing from the company."

You're not just selling your labor to a company like that. You're selling your mental health, and it ought to be illegal. It's the psychological equivalent of a construction site with no safety equipment that ranks builders based on how many nails per hour they nail-gun in and a foreman who insists that people who end up with nails stuck in their brains are just weak, incompetent employees who deserve to be fired.

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